Buying something on sale is a very special feeling. In fact, the less I pay for something, the more it is worth to me. I have a dress that I paid so little for that I am afraid to wear it. I could spill something on it, and then how would I replace it for that amount of money? ~ Rita Rudner

I love to go shopping. love to freak out salespeople. They ask me if they can help me, and I say, “Have you got anything I’d like?” Then they ask me what size I need, and I say, “Extra medium.” ~ Steven Wright

I went to a general store but they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific. ~ Steven Wright

But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. ~ Oscar Wilde

If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? ~ Richard M. Nixon

All those people whose faces decorate the shopping bags of Barnes and Noble, with a few exceptions, would never get published today. ~ Mark Crispin Miller

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

About This Site

This site offers a daily column on current events, and unlike other blogs, in long form. Short posts pointing to this and that and saying "Oh my!" seems a bit lazy. Columns here are an attempt to think things through. If you'd like to come along for the ride, fine. If you have neither the time nor patience for that, that is also fine - you can click on the LINKS tab at the top of the page and visit the sites that offer quick hits. Those provide the raw material for the analyses here.

The views here are mine alone, save for the occasional column from Ric in Paris or comments from key readers, like Rick, the News Guy in Atlanta, and others.

Commentary and guest columns are posted here, but there is a sister site, Just Above Sunset Photography, where images are far more important than words. That site is updated daily. Take a look.

JUST ABOVE SUNSET has been online, in various formats, since May 2003. Click on the ABOUT tab at the top of the page for more on that, and a note on who I am.